


I'd Like A Million of You

by arsenikitty



Category: The Thrilling Adventure Hour
Genre: Dating Doyles!, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-08
Updated: 2014-10-08
Packaged: 2018-02-20 09:07:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2423111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arsenikitty/pseuds/arsenikitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frank has a lot of old photographs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'd Like A Million of You

Frank did not like to talk about his past, Sadie had observed. She’d resolved to be perfectly content with whatever he did tell her and not be as nosy as she wanted to — curiosity killed the cat, you know. But satisfaction brought it back, and she was quite sure she’d eventually know as much as she desired.   
  
When she _was_ feeling curious, however, she indulged herself by looking at the photographs Frank kept around his apartment and wondered about the people in them -- especially the fair-haired, smiling girl who appeared in many. On the back of one of those photographs (a candid where the girl was standing in the snow, holding what appeared to be a Christmas star and a large golden crucifix) in Frank's hurried hand was written  _Catherine, raiding the Kallikantzaros._  Sadie was terribly interested in her, but had noticed that out of all of the pictures Frank had, it was only those of this Catherine girl that were stuffed into books he’d never read again or shoved into the dark back corners of drawers. She decided it would be best not to ask about her in particular.  
  
But the pictures of Red Wolf Mendles and Pterodactyl Jones were also interesting (“PJ won’t ever quit falling for dames, Sade, and Red was as old-school as they came”), as were those of Sister Mary Torquemada and Sister Kate (Frank made faces whenever she mentioned how cute Sister Kate was), and the older-than-usual photos of Frank as a little boy with two of his friends, one of them stout and cheerful, the other equally cheerful but with a clever glint in his eye (Frank clammed up about the clever boy, but was always ready to roll his eyes and exclaim, “Howie, _that doof_!").   
  
At one point Sadie had been startled to come across a photo of a young person who looked a great deal like Frank, a teenager with holes in both knees of his dirty jeans, rumpled unwashed hair, and a torn t-shirt, sitting under a bridge in Central Park. When Sadie had asked about it, Frank had admitted it was him. He’d been homeless for a little while after coming to the city, before Father Lancaster had picked him up and put him to work. “It wasn’t too bad!” he protested, seeing Sadie’s upset face. “ _Honestly!_ Shelters are a decent help, and I made a lot of contacts when I was on the street. We still help each other out from time to time, part of the network and all that.”  
  
(Sadie made sure to open several new shelters as soon as her father died, and gave even more generously to charity than she had before.)  
  
Frank still had his old camera, and still enjoyed taking candids of anyone around him. Usually, that meant Sadie. She’d come over and discover a new pile of photographs on the beat-up kitchen counter, all of them of her, usually laughing and drinking. Sometimes she’d take pictures of herself making silly faces, and Frank would find them only after they’d been developed.   
  
He tacked those up on his bedroom wall, where the special pictures went.   
(They were the only pictures there.) 

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from "Turning Japanese" by The Vapors.


End file.
